The impact came without warning.
One moment, the street was ordinary—sunlight slanting between apartment blocks, the faint smell of cooking oil drifting from open windows.
The next, my body was already moving, lunging forward before my mind could catch up.
I shouted at the boy to get away, my voice raw and sharp in the quiet afternoon. Somewhere behind me, his mother's frantic cry sliced through the air.
The child didn't listen. He was too busy chasing his ball, laughing as he scooped it up, completely oblivious to the small truck barreling down the residential road—far too fast for these narrow streets.
I was the bigger fool. My legs carried me without permission, muscles burning as I closed the distance. The truck's tires screamed in protest, but the speed was merciless.
Time stretched, warped. In one fluid motion, I hooked my hands under the boy's shoulders and hurled him clear of the road with every ounce of strength I possessed.
Then the world slowed to a crawl.
I saw myself from outside my body—standing frozen in the middle of the street as the truck's grille rushed forward. Faces of neighbors blurred at the edges of my vision, mouths open in silent shock.
The impact never registered as pain. Instead, memories flooded in like frames from an old film reel, flickering across my dying sight.
I saw my late parents, gone five years now in their own car accident. Their laughter echoing through our old living room. The sharp edge of my mother's scolding when I came home late. My father's quiet anger during one of their rare fights.
Every moment I was supposed to cherish and every moment I had tried to forget—all of it played out in vivid, aching color.
So the movies were right after all, I thought dimly.
We really do see our lives flash before our eyes at the end.
I closed my eyes, accepting it. This was my last moment.
Then a sound rang inside my skull—clear, crystalline, impossibly sweet.
A female voice, soft yet resonant, spoke with gentle precision:
{ Congratulations, Host. You have met the condition to unlock your system. [Fulfilling Desire System] }
{ Fulfill the desires of others to earn Desire Points and fulfill your own desires using Desire Points. }
A weak, bitter laugh echoed only in my mind. Even now, at the edge of death, some scam call was trying to reach me. The absurdity of it almost made me smile.
But the next breath never came.
I died there on the warm asphalt—a single man with no one left to mourn him properly—while the boy's mother wept beside my still body.
The little prick had already stopped crying. He was limping back toward his ball, rubbing the spot where I'd grabbed him, more annoyed by the rough handling than grateful for his life.
Whatever, I thought as darkness folded over me.
It doesn't matter anymore.
…Or so I wanted to believe.
But something felt wrong.
As the first faint light of morning tried to stir me awake, the voice that had fallen silent returned—clear, insistent—ringing softly in my ears.
Birdsong filtered in next, bright and melodic, as if the world itself were calling me to open my eyes. I obeyed.
Warm light flooded my vision. After a few blinks to adjust, I found myself staring up at a ceiling that was not my own.
No familiar concrete surface, no lazily spinning ceiling fan. Instead, rough thatch and long, weathered bamboo poles stretched overhead, golden strands of dried grass catching the early sunlight.
I raised a brow in confusion.
But that confusion twisted instantly into sharp pain, as though a needle had been driven between my eyes. Foreign memories surged into my mind, flooding every corner, tangling and merging with my own until what had once been alien slowly became mine.
They belonged to a young man named Kell Feldren.
He had lived with his uncle's family in a modest village on the outskirts of Rosethrown town—not because he had lost his parents or been abandoned, but because his uncle and aunt had no child of their own. When he was still young, they had taken him in to raise as their son. Yet by then he had already been too old to truly see them as parents.
Their days passed in the quiet rhythm of village life—tending fields, simple chores, the steady cycle of farming.
Two days earlier, this Kell had been bitten by a snake. The fool hadn't told anyone, convinced it was nothing more than a harmless water snake. It wasn't. By the time the truth revealed itself, he was already dead.
And now I had taken his body.
What a fool.
I sat up slowly, the rough straw mattress shifting beneath me, and considered my strange new reality.
Living another life… perhaps it wasn't so bad after all.
Before the thought could settle into anything resembling relief, the same sweet voice rang inside my skull once more.
A translucent holographic panel shimmered into existence before my eyes, glowing with crisp, futuristic edges.
[Host only has five hours to live. Would you like to spend 1 Desire Point to gain 24 hours more to live?]
[Current Desire Points: 10]
The moment the message appeared, a torrent of information flooded my mind—gentler this time, without the stabbing pain. I absorbed it quickly, the truth settling like cold stone in my chest.
This body was still poisoned. My remaining lifespan measured barely five hours. I could extend it by twenty-four hours for a single Desire Point, or purge the poison entirely for two hundred.
But the problem was painfully simple: I possessed only the ten points the system had granted me as an initial reward.
A low groan escaped my lips.
"Haah… why am I just so unlucky?"
The words had scarcely left my mouth when a familiar voice called from the doorway of the hut.
"Kell, are you awake? Your uncle is calling for you for fishing."
I froze instinctively. Then, remembering who I now was, I answered.
"Coming, Aunt."
"Okay. Come quickly. I have already prepared breakfast."
Her footsteps retreated as she returned to her morning tasks. I let out a quiet sigh, pushed myself to my feet, and stepped out of the small thatched hut.
The cool morning sun brushed across my bare torso, its gentle warmth mingling with the crisp air that carried the faint scent of dew and distant fields.
My new life—however brief and uncertain—had begun once more in this unfamiliar world.
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Try out this novel if you like some action and smut with slice of life and kingdom building:
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